Where is the mainstream media?
Glenn Beck likes to palm himself off as a friend of the little guy. But he's a shill for a company that is more of an enemy than a friend.
If you go to his website it smacks you right in the face: a banner ad for "Goldline International," a precious metals dealer. Beck's puss is right in front with the words, "Trusted and Used by Glenn Beck." He's done a video for them, and I'm sure they've paid him a fortune.
Alexander Zaitchik said in Alternet a few months ago that it is one of his biggest sponsors.
So what kind of company is Goldline? Forget about the mainstream media. They're not coming near this hot potato.
But if you go to the Ripoff Report, which compiles complaints against businesses, you see that a lot of people used this company but came away feeling used.
Let's look at the most recent one, from some guy named "William" in North Carolina:
Several years ago, I filled out an online form of Goldline Interntional's to receive some literature about investing in precious metals. Soon after I was contacted by John Arnette, a salesperson with Goldline. John was pleasant and convincing. He informed me that I should view him as an 'adviser' similar to my stock broker. I was interested in buying gold but was not yet ready. When the time was 'right', I called John back with the intention of purchasing a large amount of Bullion gold. The price of gold at the time was $420/ oz. and the price of silver was less than $7 per oz. In my opinion that was pretty good timing. John 'advised' me to talk further with one of Goldline's Numismatists. I was young as a precious metals investor and was looking forward to the education and 'advice'. The Numismatist sounded very educated and convinced me to invest half of my money in Silver PCGS MS64 Peace Dollars. I agreed, as he told me that these had sold for as high as $250 each in the 1980's. I purchased 1000 of them at a price of $52 each ($52,000 in Peace Dollars).
So what happened?
I recently called them back to re-sell my Peace Dollars. They told me that they would pay $47 each. At this time, the price of silver had doubled from the price it was when I first bought from Goldline.
William says: "What a bunch of liars and deceivers these scam artists are at Goldline."
The next report at the RipOff Report specifically mentions Glenn Beck:
After watching Glenn Beck's video about Goldline International, I decided to request a brochure from their web site. I was contacted by phone at work 2 days later by a salesgirl who encouraged me to go ahead and make the purchase because the prices were going up rapidly and I would lose money if I waited for the brochure. I could hear a lot of people talking in the background. It sounded like a 'boiler room'.
After talking me into buying $10,000 worth of English Gold Sovereigns (because they were pretty, according to her) I gave my credit card number to her. Fortunately for me, my credit card company refused the purchase due to my credit limit.
She called back and asked if I could put it on 2 credit cards, but the other one got refused too, thank the Lord.
Between phone calls from this slick little lady, I did some math. Goldline was charging me $10,094 for 25 gold sovereigns, at $403.76 each. These coins are only 25 percent of one ounce. I checked the day's gold fix online and it was trading at $955 an ounce. So I was purchasing 6.25 ounces of gold worth just under $6,000 for $10,094 - a 40 percent markup!
Obviously, I was paying retail, not wholesale, and the salesgirl explained they charge a 30 to 35 percent markup on the front end for numismatic coins which she explained were a better buy, since they were private and the government could not confiscate them.
I finally asked her to cancel my order because I explained that this was a difficult decision for me and I needed more time to sort through all this information, but she did not go quietly. She emphasized that I was losing money by waiting, and even used flattery, calling me a 'savvy investor' and asked if I would just like to stick with my $6,000 from my first credit card and purchase less gold, but I said no, please cancel.
Now my weekend is ruined because the credit to my card will not show up until next week sometime and I am worried. If they don't credit my card, I will sue these people.
It goes on and on like this. Where is the mainstream media?
In a previous diary I mentioned how Glenn Beck gives a forum for a disgusting piece of corporate dung named Patrick Byrne, the phony populist from Utah who actually came on the Kos and brayed like a hyena.
If Beck is to be known by the company he keeps, I'd say that this man stinks so badly that he'd wilt flowers at 500 yards. He says he's the friend of the little man. He's got a populist spiel. But he's a phony who takes money from a company that gets rich off the backs of ordinary people.